Usability Testing: Creative Techniques for Answering Your Research Questions

Usability for any product, and especially for a lifesaving device, is critical in that the users will be interacting with the device in a highly stressful and complex environment. This study examined self- contained breathing apparatus (SCBAs) and conducted a usability assessment of these SCBAs with refill stations as it pertains to mine escape. Data was collected examining three usability topic areas (effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction) and eight constructs within these topic areas (completeness, accuracy, time requirements, overall satisfaction, discomfort, ease of use, system performance, and user preference). This paper documents the usability framework adopted and the methodology used to answer the research questions of the study and includes sample results and discussion. The methodology presented can be modified and used to test other lifesaving technologies to compare the usability of the devices and to estimate the ability of the devices to function as expected in a lifesaving situation.

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The Collaborative Network Approach: a model for advancing patient-centric research for Castleman disease and other rare diseases

Emerging Topics in Life Sciences ◽

10.1042/etls20180178 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. 97-105

Author(s):

Mary Zuccato ◽

Dustin Shilling ◽

David C. Fajgenbaum

Keyword(s):

Rare Diseases ◽

Treatment Options ◽

Castleman Disease ◽

High Impact ◽

Collaborative Network ◽

Network Approach ◽

Grant Applications ◽

Research Questions ◽

Novel Strategy ◽

Patient Centric

Abstract There are ∼7000 rare diseases affecting 30 000 000 individuals in the U.S.A. 95% of these rare diseases do not have a single Food and Drug Administration-approved therapy. Relatively, limited progress has been made to develop new or repurpose existing therapies for these disorders, in part because traditional funding models are not as effective when applied to rare diseases. Due to the suboptimal research infrastructure and treatment options for Castleman disease, the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network (CDCN), founded in 2012, spearheaded a novel strategy for advancing biomedical research, the ‘Collaborative Network Approach’. At its heart, the Collaborative Network Approach leverages and integrates the entire community of stakeholders — patients, physicians and researchers — to identify and prioritize high-impact research questions. It then recruits the most qualified researchers to conduct these studies. In parallel, patients are empowered to fight back by supporting research through fundraising and providing their biospecimens and clinical data. This approach democratizes research, allowing the entire community to identify the most clinically relevant and pressing questions; any idea can be translated into a study rather than limiting research to the ideas proposed by researchers in grant applications. Preliminary results from the CDCN and other organizations that have followed its Collaborative Network Approach suggest that this model is generalizable across rare diseases.

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Factors Influencing Cognate Performance for Young Multilingual Children's Vocabulary: A Research Synthesis

American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology ◽

10.1044/2020_ajslp-19-00167 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 29 (4) ◽

pp. 2170-2188

Author(s):

Lindsey R. Squires ◽

Sara J. Ohlfest ◽

Kristen E. Santoro ◽

Jennifer L. Roberts

Keyword(s):

Test Validity ◽

Reaction Times ◽

Bilingual Children ◽

Second Grade ◽

High Quality Research ◽

Word Level ◽

Research Questions ◽

Word Characteristics ◽

Study Inclusion ◽

Task Level

Purpose The purpose of this systematic review was to determine evidence of a cognate effect for young multilingual children (ages 3;0–8;11 [years;months], preschool to second grade) in terms of task-level and child-level factors that may influence cognate performance. Cognates are pairs of vocabulary words that share meaning with similar phonology and/or orthography in more than one language, such as rose – rosa (English–Spanish) or carrot – carotte (English–French). Despite the cognate advantage noted with older bilingual children and bilingual adults, there has been no systematic examination of the cognate research in young multilingual children. Method We conducted searches of multiple electronic databases and hand-searched article bibliographies for studies that examined young multilingual children's performance with cognates based on study inclusion criteria aligned to the research questions. Results The review yielded 16 articles. The majority of the studies (12/16, 75%) demonstrated a positive cognate effect for young multilingual children (measured in higher accuracy, faster reaction times, and doublet translation equivalents on cognates as compared to noncognates). However, not all bilingual children demonstrated a cognate effect. Both task-level factors (cognate definition, type of cognate task, word characteristics) and child-level factors (level of bilingualism, age) appear to influence young bilingual children's performance on cognates. Conclusions Contrary to early 1990s research, current researchers suggest that even young multilingual children may demonstrate sensitivity to cognate vocabulary words. Given the limits in study quality, more high-quality research is needed, particularly to address test validity in cognate assessments, to develop appropriate cognate definitions for children, and to refine word-level features. Only one study included a brief instruction prior to assessment, warranting cognate treatment studies as an area of future need. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12753179

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Nonconscious Activation of Achievement Goals

Swiss Journal of Psychology ◽

10.1024/1421-0185.68.4.193 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 68 (4) ◽

pp. 193-200 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Stefan Engeser

Keyword(s):

Achievement Goals ◽

Priming Effect ◽

Achievement Goal ◽

Word Class ◽

Achievement Motive ◽

Goal Priming ◽

Series Of Experiments ◽

Research Questions

In a series of experiments, Bargh, Gollwitzer, Lee-Chai, Barndollar, and Trötschel (2001) documented that achievement goals can be activated outside of awareness and can then operate nonconsciously in order to guide self-regulated behavior effectively. In three experiments (N = 69, N = 71, N = 56), two potential moderators of the achievement goal priming effect were explored. All three experiments showed small but consistent effects of the nonconscious activation of the achievement goal, though word class did not moderate the priming effect. There was no support for the hypothesis that the explicit achievement motive moderates the priming effect. Implications are addressed in the light of other recent studies in this domain and further research questions are outlined.

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A Meta-Analysis of Interviews and Cognitive Ability

Journal of Personnel Psychology ◽

10.1027/1866-5888/a000091 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 12 (4) ◽

pp. 157-169 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Philip L. Roth ◽

Allen I. Huffcutt

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Ability ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Incremental Validity ◽

Employment Interviews ◽

Moderator Analysis ◽

The Future ◽

Research Questions ◽

Meta Analyses ◽

The Relationship

The topic of what interviews measure has received a great deal of attention over the years. One line of research has investigated the relationship between interviews and the construct of cognitive ability. A previous meta-analysis reported an overall corrected correlation of .40 ( Huffcutt, Roth, & McDaniel, 1996 ). A more recent meta-analysis reported a noticeably lower corrected correlation of .27 ( Berry, Sackett, & Landers, 2007 ). After reviewing both meta-analyses, it appears that the two studies posed different research questions. Further, there were a number of coding judgments in Berry et al. that merit review, and there was no moderator analysis for educational versus employment interviews. As a result, we reanalyzed the work by Berry et al. and found a corrected correlation of .42 for employment interviews (.15 higher than Berry et al., a 56% increase). Further, educational interviews were associated with a corrected correlation of .21, supporting their influence as a moderator. We suggest a better estimate of the correlation between employment interviews and cognitive ability is .42, and this takes us “back to the future” in that the better overall estimate of the employment interviews – cognitive ability relationship is roughly .40. This difference has implications for what is being measured by interviews and their incremental validity.

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Development of Reading Remediation for Dyslexic Individuals

Zeitschrift für Psychologie ◽

10.1027/2151-2604/a000259 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 224 (4) ◽

pp. 240-246 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Mélanie Bédard ◽

Line Laplante ◽

Julien Mercier

Keyword(s):

20Th Century ◽

Scientific Literature ◽

Behavioral Data ◽

Educational Neuroscience ◽

Reading Remediation ◽

Functional Brain ◽

Neurophysiological Data ◽

Brain Correlates ◽

Research Questions ◽

The Brain

Abstract. Dyslexia is a phenomenon for which the brain correlates have been studied since the beginning of the 20th century. Simultaneously, the field of education has also been studying dyslexia and its remediation, mainly through behavioral data. The last two decades have seen a growing interest in integrating neuroscience and education. This article provides a quick overview of pertinent scientific literature involving neurophysiological data on functional brain differences in dyslexia and discusses their very limited influence on the development of reading remediation for dyslexic individuals. Nevertheless, it appears that if certain conditions are met – related to the key elements of educational neuroscience and to the nature of the research questions – conceivable benefits can be expected from the integration of neurophysiological data with educational research. When neurophysiological data can be employed to overcome the limits of using behavioral data alone, researchers can both unravel phenomenon otherwise impossible to document and raise new questions.

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